


This Bed

by BadWolf303 (orphan_account)



Series: Nobody said it was easy. [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6094039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/BadWolf303
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She’ll have to fight passed his fears, hold her own against his past. She’ll need to listen, need not to judge. She’ll need to push aside her insecurities, her shameful jealousy, to help him keep loving them but also love her." Kibbs. Post-Twilight AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Bed

If you told Kate Todd from the first time she met Ari – trapped and angry and _oh so disappointed_ in herself in autopsy with Ducky and Gerald – that she would have a reason to thank that son of a bitch, well, she would probably shoot you.

But the Kate of right now, the one who studies the shape of Gibbs face as he sleeps on the hard floor of his basement, wrapped up together in a throw blanket he started keeping down there just for her? This Kate knows much more than the Kate down in autopsy did that day.

This Kate knows that taking two bullets into her bulletproof vest covered chest is a lot more painful, but a lot less terrifying, than narrowly missing one to the head. This Kate knows that her NCIS teammates have her back more intensely than any former Secret Service Agent could ever dream, knows that Tony cares enough to look _absolutely panicked_ as the bullet flew passed her cheek so closely she swears, even though there was no mark on her skin, that she could feel it. She knows that Gibbs was afraid – yes, afraid – enough to grab her by the arm the moment they got back to headquarters to pull her back into the elevator to _ream her out_ for doing her job. 

She also now knows what Gibbs feels like, what he tastes like. Knows how the hitch in his voice when he whispers her name when she touches him _just like that, God Katie, just like that_ is nearly her undoing. Knows how soft and gentle he can be. Knows the feel of his mouth, more intimately knows his scent. She knows each curve of his body as well as his boat. Knows that, even in sleep, he cannot seem to be peaceful.

The Kate from then, the Kate who vetted Gibbs before she let him anywhere near the President, knew Gibbs’ past, knew the things he keeps close to the chest and tells no one about – not Ducky, not Abby, and still not even Kate. But the Kate of now knows the repercussions. Knows how fitfully he sleeps. Knows how willing he is to drink his bourbon, how tightly he holds her as if he’s afraid she’ll slip away, how raw he sounds when he speaks while dreaming: _Shannon_. Or a choked and shuddering _Kelly._

She shifts on the cold floor, and immediately regrets it. Ari may have died right here, a few feet from her head, but he has not yet completely vanished. She feels him in her ribs, still bruised and sore from that night on the rooftop. She sees him in Ziva’s face. Kate doesn’t trust Ziva yet, can’t bring herself to see the kindness in those deep brown eyes that reminds her _oh so much_ of the kindness she thought she saw in Ari. But she worries about their new Mossad teammate anyway. She’s been a profiler long enough to identify Ziva’s well-intentioned fierceness, and has been a human long enough to recognize Ziva’s pain.  
  
“You okay?” Gibbs’ voice is rough with sleep and unnaturally loud in the quiet room. 

“Ribs,” she says. “Sleeping on a cold sawdust covered floor probably isn’t exactly what the doctor had in mind when he told me to rest.”

“Probably wouldn’t advise what we did on the floor before sleep took over, either.” He’s smug, which she knew before his first desperate kiss the night after the rooftop and is glad hasn’t changed. Gibbs is still Gibbs, even as a lover.

“I’ve heard rumors about the boat the first day I joined NCIS,” she says as he leans on one hand and traces the bruising along her ribcage with the other. “Honestly, I think the bigger mystery is whether or not you own an actual bed.”

He laughs, and she considers it a personal victory every time she’s the one to make him smile. “All you had to do was ask,” he says.

She bites her lip. “I’m asking.”

His half-smile is cocky, as if getting her into his bed was a foregone conclusion the moment they met on Airforce One (it probably was) and as if he’s been waiting for this almost as long as she has (which hopefully isn’t just wishful thinking.) He’s spent plenty of time on the floor under his boat alone to know it well enough to duck in all the right places not to hit his head, and tugs her arms to provide the same level of caution now with her. He stands first and pulls her up with him, and although she can’t fight back the flinch, she at least has the know how and willpower not to give in to the groan.

Ari is dead, but Gibbs has never been one to surrender his misplaced guilt.  
  
“I’m fine,” she says before he can ask. “Sore, but fine.”

He studies her face like he’d study a suspect, something that she once found unnerving but grew to understand. She knows it’s been three weeks, knows they should be more healed by now. If, you know, she wasn’t a Special Agent. If she wasn’t already back in the field, wasn’t responsible for the physical demands of the career she chose.

“Shoulda taken more time off, Kate,” Gibbs says as if reading her thoughts.

“Maybe. But you need me.” She’s just as smug, and she knows he likes that.

He fails to fight off his smile. “You could at least take it easy. I’ve got four of you now. Let Ziva take some of the heavy lifting.”

Kate doesn’t answer him, doesn’t want to talk about it out loud. Ziva is good (Ziva is _great_ ) but she’s still Mossad, still Ari’s half-sister, and Kate isn’t ready to relinquish control and allow the other woman near McGee, near Tony – _good God_ , near _Gibbs_ – without staying completely alert quite yet.

“Two bullets to the chest and nearly one to the head should prove I’m bad ass enough to hold my own.”

It’s a joke. Kate gives as good as she gets, always will and always has from the moment she told him she earned her jockstrap. They work best that way, both on the field and in the safety of his basement. Which is why she’s thrown when he frowns, when his shoulders tense and his hold on her hands gets ironclad tight.

“Don’t, Kate.”

She curses her misstep, curses his late wife who left him too soon and left him to _her_ to try and take care of. Her mouth goes dry by the sincerity in his clear blue eyes, and she pulls a hand away to bring to his cheek. She rubs his rough skin with the pad of her thumb. “Hey, I’m okay. You don’t need to worry about me.”

He releases her hand, takes a step backwards away from her touch. He retreats, and her response is physical, as if a line is drawn between the two of them and he just gave it a hard tug. As if the weight of everything – of Ari and the bullets she took for Gibbs and the one she almost took to the head, of Mossad and Ziva, _poor Ziva_ , and of Tony and McGee and Abby and Ducky and NCIS and this _goddamn job_ and Shannon and Kelly – of _everything_ falls straight onto her shoulders. It crushes her bruised ribs, and she forgets, momentarily, how to breathe.

He turns from her, and she hears herself calling, loudly, echoing around them and bouncing off his boat: “I’m not dead yet.”

“It’s the _yet_ that worries me, Agent Todd.”

He hasn’t moved, but he’s retreating. He’s retreating, and not just from the basement but from whatever this is between them, whatever it has the potential to be, whatever it already is. Whatever has been building since Air- _fucking_ -force One, and has finally finally reached its peak thanks to Ari. (Part of her is still horrified that she has anything to thank him for, but the other part, the larger part, finds solace over the thought that Ari would be disgusted by his part in their happiness.)

Happiness. Now that she knows what he feels like above her and below her and, god damn it, _all over her_ , she is helpless, and the words tumble without her permission. “Because of Shannon?”

She hears his sharp inhale, watches the muscles in his upper back as they tense and twitch if ready for battle. They must look ridiculous, her in just her bra and panties and bruises, him in just boxers, sawdust clinging to the both of them. The Kate Todd who was handpicked to protect the President, who is a trained Special Agent, who even when acting without thinking calculates the risk, is horrified by how easily her accidental question slipped from her lips. The Kate Todd who is falling for Gibbs is terrified of his reaction.

She considers apologizing. Surely breaking that rule is better than breaking the unspoken one she made to herself the moment she started working for him, the one that said: Do Not Speak of His Past. He doesn’t give her the chance to. He turns around, stepping into her personal space where he spent the past three weeks. She drowns in his shadow as his eyes search hers for some sort of explanation.

She sees the moment he places it all on his own. His voice impossibly soft when he says, “You’ve known all along.”

She could cry right now, she really could. “Yes.”

“You haven’t said anything.”  
  
“Neither have you.”

She won’t cry. But the weight of the world and of Gibbs and of possibly losing him just when she found him is making it hard not to, making it even harder to breathe. Her breaths become shallow, and it _hurts_ , because her goddamn ribs _still hurt_.  
  
He reaches for her, and his hand is so warm on her skin. He’s gentle as he places a hand on her elbow and leads her to his chair. She sits, and the fire in her chest starts to burn out, more so when he puts his hands on her thighs and closes his eyes. She brings her hands into his hair, scratches at his scalp when he ducks his head. She pulls him close and breathes him in. _Coffee, bourbon, sawdust_.

“You put your life on the line every day for this job,” he says.

“Yes.”

“She didn’t. And she still…” He picks up his head, and the shine and honesty and _fear_ in his eyes takes her breath away. Again. “You have the makings of a great agent, Kate.”

She takes a calculated risk. “Are you saying I’m not already?”

He breathes a laugh, and it’s her victory.

“I’m okay, Gibbs,” she says. “Alive, and okay. And…” She pauses. She’s still learning how to swim in the uncharted waters of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. She’s not sure she’ll ever know the depth of it all, never fully know what there is to discover. But she knows, _she knows,_ she wants to spend a lifetime trying. She sighs. “And I really, really want to see your so called bed.”

He smiles, lifting some of the weight with him. “Guess I’d be a fool to ignore such a request.”

“You would be, yes,” she says. He moves to his feet, taking her hands and pulling her up with him, pulling her _into_ him. Her arms wrap easily around him, and he presses a kiss to the top of her hair. She stands onto her tiptoes, ignoring the pull of her bruises, to meet his lips with hers.

“That bed, then?” she asks, and he turns to lead her up the stairs. “And I promise I’ll try and take things easier at work. At least for a little while.”  
  
“Let Ziva help,” he says. It’s both a warning and a suggestion all together, vaguely condescending, and so very Gibbs.

“She is helping,” she tells him. “Tony has his hands full with her, so he hasn’t had as much time to annoy the crap out of me.”

“As long as his hands aren’t too full.”

Kate stops short, smirking at him. “Pretty hypocritical if you start quoting Rule 12 at them, don’t you think?”

He smiles, and she knows the conversation isn’t over, probably won’t be for a long time. She’ll have to fight passed his fears, hold her own against his past. She’ll need to listen, need not to judge. She’ll need to push aside her insecurities, her shameful jealousy, to help him keep loving _them_ but also love _her_.

He’ll have his own work to do, too. Because Kate Todd is a fighter, but this is not something she can or will fight for alone.

But the way he smiles back at her as they ascend the stairs, the way he holds his bedroom door open for her as he finally ( _finally!_ ) allows her into his space? She thinks she won’t have to. She thinks he might already be fighting for her.

And, let Ari burn in Hell, but this Kate, the one who fought Ari and loves Gibbs, doesn’t mind the pain it took her to get here.

 


End file.
